Journal of Unschooling and Alternative Learning Vol. 5, Issue 10, Summer, 2011.
SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT:
INTERVIEWS WITH A HUNDRED BRITISH
HOME EDUCATING FAMILIES
Paula ROTHERMEL
Abstract
This study provides the first in-depth insight into home educators’ thoughts in
the UK. One hundred UK-based home-educating families were interviewed, 33 twice,
mostly in their own homes, after having been randomly selected from a larger sample
of families responding to an initial home-education questionnaire (Rothermel 2002).
Participating families were from diverse socio-economic groups, family structures and
cultural backgrounds. The interviews were undertaken with a view to exploring issues
within home-educating families that would not necessarily have become apparent
through the questionnaires alone. The interviews revealed clear friction in some
families, both within the home-educating family and between them and their extended
family, which directly related to home-education. Generally however, the homeeducating families were satisfied with their choice and relished the close family
relationships engendered. These extensive interviews underline the view that viewing
home educators as ‘types’ is useful only to those local authorities aiming to integrate
children into school.
INTRODUCTION
Whilst it has become fashionable to refer to home education as an ‘underresearched phenomenon’ (Morton 2010) this position is no longer tenable. The list of
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British research on the topic is long indeed and includes: Badman (2009), Barson
(2004, 2009), Bates (1996), Berlow and Cox (2010), Bhopal, Kalwant and Myers,
Martin (2009), Blacker (1981), Brunton (1996), Clegg (2001), Eddis (2007), FortuneWood (2005, 2006), Goymer (2001), Hopwood, O’Neill, Carstro and Hodgson
(2007), Ivvats (2006), Kendal and Atkinson (2006), Lowden (1993), Meighan (1995),
Monk (2005), Morton (2010) McIntyre-Bhatty (2007), Parsons and Lewis (2009),
Patterson (1995) Page (1997), Petrie (1992), Petrie, Windrass and Thomas (1998),
Rothermel (2001, 2002, 2004, 2005, 2010), Saffran (2008), Thomas (1998), Webb
(1990, 1999) and Yusoff (2009).
Amongst the body of research there have been a number of studies involving
interviews, but none have been as large or extensive as Rothermel (2002) whose
research involved 100 face-to-face interviews with home educating families in their
own homes. Despite the importance of these interviews, they were not included in a
final written study but were instead reserved for inclusion in a later book (Rothermel
2011). This paper seeks to redress the situation somewhat, and provides the first indepth insight into home educators’ thoughts in the UK. Rothermel (2005) built upon
earlier work attempting to categorise home educators as ‘types’ and the discussions
set out on this present text allow the reader to further explore this idea. Earlier UK
works with ‘types’ include Blacker’s (1981) UK ‘Rebels’, ‘Competitors’ and
‘Compensators’. Analysis in Rothermel (2005) confirmed that these groups indeed
existed but found the picture considerably more complex owing to the fluid nature of
home education and the growth in numbers over the last 30 years. Further, there is
work from the United States by Maybery (1988), whose classifications are
particularly insightful in drawing comparisons between ‘alternative’ families and
some religious families. Van Galen and Pitman (1991) divided families into
‘Ideologues’, (traditionalists, often Christians, who become increasingly radical) and
professional child-centred ‘Pedagogues’, whilst Stevens (2001) studied ‘earth based’
and ‘heaven based’ families. Most recently in the UK, Morton (2010) presents a three
category approach, listing three loose groups, defining ‘natural’, ‘social’ and ‘last
resort’ home educators. These can be broadly compared, in order, to Blacker’s groups.
Morton’s study involved interviews with 19 families and wider discussions with other
home educators that echo those set out in a report by the Office for Standards in
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Education (Ofsted 2010) which lists the bands as philosophical/religious, education
and well- being concerns, and bad school experiences. [Ofsted is the Office for
Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills which is the non-ministerial
government department of Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Schools In England.] The
Ofsted report involved data collection from 15 Local Authorities, and meetings
attended by 120 parents and 130 children, whilst questionnaires were completed by
148 parents and 158 children and young people. Ofsted and Morton categorisations of
home educations differ in that whilst Morton places religious families mainly in her
‘social group’, Ofsted appears to place similar families together with the
philosophical; both highlight however, that these categorisations are not exclusive.
Rothermel (2005) took a different approach, calling for an end to categorization,
concluding, “Perhaps there is now, in the UK, too diverse a population pursuing
home-education to be neatly categorised”. Rothermel suggests defining homeeducators by strata; first, as a superficially homogenous group, second, as diverse
groups, third, as families, and fourth, as individuals. This stratum approach provides
insight into the increasing numbers of families who are choosing to home-educate and
their growing appearance as a movement. Further, it allows for the way families
adapt, both over time and concurrently, as they learn, produce more children and
tailor their different approaches to different children within the family.
METHOD
From a study involving over 1000 questionnaire responses, 419 were analysed and
from these 100 families were selected for interview. This was a broadly random
approach. Some families were interviewed because they were involved in a
concurrent assessment programme, by virtue of having children in relevant age groups
(this aspect is described in detail within Rothermel 2002 and 2004), whilst others
were chosen because they were en-route as the researcher spent approximately six
weeks (in two halves) touring the UK in pursuit of the academic performance data.
FAMILY STRUCTURE
The majority of the 100 sampled families were heterosexual two-parent families (81).
The remainder consisted of 17 homosexual/heterosexual one-parent families, and two
homosexual two-parent families. Due to the fluidity of the family however, these
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figures are inconstant. Over the period of the interviews (approximately eighteen
months), one married couple separated, one single parent began to live with her exhusband, another two home-educating single parents (a male and female) who had
previously been semi-cohabiting, went their separate ways, a single parent began a
lesbian relationship, and at least 10 children were born. Some families were transient:
one family began travelling around the world, another emigrated and eleven others
simply moved house.
Parental Background
Several parents had received a religious upbringing and continued in that tradition;
some had been born overseas; some came from lower socio-economic backgrounds,
others quite the reverse. The idea of the middle class family as stereotypical homeeducators was dispelled by observation of this sample. Three of the families had been,
or were, travellers; several of the families might have been able to afford private
schooling had they desired (n=≥5) and several others clearly struggled, making
‘financial sacrifices’ in order to exercise their choice to home-educate. While the
majority of families in this study owned their own houses, a number of others lived in
rented accommodation (n=≥11). One family was squatting.
A minority of parents had been subjected to bullying at school or had been irregular
attendees. Approximately half the parents said that they had enjoyed their time at
school. Most parents believed that most of their education had commenced after
leaving school.
Occupations for which parents were trained ranged from miner to teacher, tree
surgeon to shop assistant and vicar to biologist. While some families had one parent at
home with them most of the time, often that parent continued working. It was not
unusual to find highly qualified parents taking on manual work, perhaps involving
night shifts, to fit around home education. A couple of parents worked seasonally with
the children, taking their wares to various festivals to sell. There were just 16 parents
who appeared not to work although the actual situation was unclear. Five parents were
disabled and unable to work. All parents were resourceful, but where finances were
limited it was often necessary for both parents to contribute in some way to the family
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income. It was evident that with children at home, parents made use of creative work
arrangements, such as, arranging factory shifts to fit in with a wife’s part time work or
organising appointments around the need to provide transport for the family. The
number of parents on social security benefit was very small. Of the 183 parents in the
study, 13 (7.1%) were professional musicians. Science specialisations were also
noticeable amongst the parents.
One-parent families
There was only one, single father parent family amongst those interviewed. Generally,
single parents coped well although life could be extremely tough, as one parent, Mary,
stated:
“Rollo was a breech birth. I still breast-fed him but he was damaged at
birth. He had no speech, suffered from epilepsy and had poor coordination. At four he just lay on the floor and dribbled, he wasn’t toilet
trained, didn’t sleep, suffered petit mal, a tremor and an eye flicker.”
Mary’s journey with Rollo had been one of despair and loneliness partnered with joy
and triumph over the difficulties they had overcome. Home-education, however, had
not been a last resort for Mary:
“I probably would have considered home-education anyway, especially up
to secondary age. It’s easier to be at home with a little one, you can cater
for every need.”
There were single parents who received support from their own parents or ex-partners.
For example, Ms White ran a shop with her mother who also assisted with the care of
Rita, aged 5 who was taken to the shop whenever it was necessary. The three Dance
children shared two different fathers, both travellers who regularly (at different times)
appeared and stayed in their vans in the garden, helping out as necessary with the
children. Rose Woods’ father was supportive even though her parents were separated –
during the interview period her mother began a new relationship and became pregnant:
Rose’s mother worked part-time and her grandmother remained supportive both
financially and morally.
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Homosexual two-parent families
The children from same-sex parent families appeared not to suffer adversely, even
where their situation was extreme. One such family lived in poverty yet the children,
though unkempt, appeared secure and apparently held their mother’s partner in high
esteem. The second family, the Soames’, were far more of a unit than many of the
families visited. Paula and Sarah had been born into this same-sex family as planned
for additions to the relationship and this may have led to the children’s security as
well as to widespread acceptance of the family. The Soames’ children assisted with
the research in several ways, the results indicating that the children were academically
advanced and psycho-emotionally stable.
Heterosexual two-parent families
While mothers were often the parent most involved with the day to day running of the
children’s education, the fathers tended to adopt a different approach, namely, that
whist mothers were often the ‘doers’, the fathers tended to be the ‘opinion givers’.
This could be quite burdensome for the mothers.
The Kahns were an Anglo-Asian family and Mr Kahn was sceptical about whether
home-education was the ‘right’ thing. Here, he admits to having a different opinion to
his wife, Jane, yet interviewed in his wife’s presence, he is cautious not to upset her:
“If Raul [aged nine] said he wanted to go to school, I would be glad. I’ve
no philosophy to be undermined. If Jane said to send him to school I
would have said yes. If Jane hadn’t suggested home-education then I
would not have thought about it. My first thought when Jane suggested it,
was that I was concerned it was the right thing, that’s about it. No, I don’t
play much part in their education. I’m quite happy with the role I play.”
The Smith family were, perhaps, the stereotypically ‘normal.’ They were neither
religious, nor did they harbour either libertarian or conservative views. Their
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town house seemed conventional from the outside. The family were not affluent
and the furniture reflected this. Mrs Smith said:
“Originally we had no intentions of this. She didn’t take to nursery and
when it came up to starting-school age I asked the head if she could stay in
the nursery. She said ‘no’, because of ‘pressure of places’. We thought, ‘to
hell with it, she can go when she’s ready. I still envisage her going, but it’s
getting further and further.”
Home-educators and large families
Families often tended to be larger than the norm, particularly where the parents were
practising Christians. However, occasionally the decision to home-educate was
influential in the decision to bear more children: initially this may have been to create
company, although the family closeness that came from home-educating often caused
families to welcome more children. Accompanying the shift towards attached
parenting, as seen in many of the families who home-educated from birth, was a
desire to leave birth control to nature. The Christians tended not to use contraceptives.
When asked how many children they were planning to have, Jeanette, pregnant with
her tenth child, looked to Heaven and replied:
“Only the Lord knows.”
And Jane Croll (with four children), a non-Christian responded to the same question:
“As many as arrive.”
Older and wiser parents
It appeared that about 30% of the mothers interviewed may have not started their
families before the age of 30. Nine sets of parents with young children appeared to
have adult children living away from home, possibly from earlier relationships. In
each of these cases, the earlier children had attended school. It was possible that ‘late’
parents were more philosophical about education than younger, less experienced ones.
It was not unusual to hear the older parents express the following sentiments:
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Setting the record straight: Interviews with 100 home educating families
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“I planned to go back to work and realised we just couldn’t hand our 5
year old over to someone else.”
Four sets of parents specifically referred to having been in their forties before their
first child was born:
“I was over forty when we had Deborah, and I breast-fed her for three
years. We would have liked more children.”
The attitudes and roles of fathers
There was just one family where the father was unambiguous about his disapproval of
home-education. Mrs Wright stressed:
“I belong to ‘Education Otherwise’, my husband, most emphatically, does
not.”
Throughout the ten months between interviews Mr Wright continued to believe that
his children ought to be in a school despite their apparent contentment. This, his wife
explained, was more a result of his upbringing than of his attitude towards his own
children’s education.
There were fathers who seemed to need reassurance that home-education was good
for their children:
“My husband was very unsure about home-education to begin with, but
once he saw the LEA report and could draw comparisons he felt better. He
still has niggling doubts.”
And:
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Journal of Unschooling and Alternative Learning Vol. 5, Issue 10, Summer, 2011.
“It took a while to turn Geoffrey on to the idea of home-education. He felt
that I was attacking everything we had trained for [teaching]. Once he
started back at school after the holidays, he came home after one week and
said, ‘OK, you can home-educate. I don’t want them ever to be as
miserable as I am now.”
Several fathers really felt they would like to put far more into their child’s education
that they were able, being restricted by work obligations:
“My work means that I cannot spend as much time as I would like.”
Below are the voices of two fathers who enthusiastically supported home-education
for their children:
“Attachment parenting1 is central to my philosophy. It is the opposite of
conventional parenting which is adult driven and has bedtimes imposed.
With attachment there is freedom for the child who is empowered within
boundaries, there is no defined bedtime, less regimentation, the children
making decisions for themselves, thinking, spontaneity, choice. It is more
important just to function.”
The final paternal comment was quoted as a reminder that there was more than one
way of seeing a situation:
“A friend of mine at work was home-educated because he lived in Africa.
He says it was a positive experience. But then he says this about boarding
school too!”
DECISIVE FACTORS IN THE DECISION TO HOME-EDUCATE
Decisions to home-educate any one child were quite often made before the children
were born. However, initial judgment may have come about following poor
1
‘Attachment parenting’ refers to a style of parenting that is generally defined as involving
some or all of the following: prolonged breastfeeding, the family bed, non coercion, and
Liedloff's (1986) continuum theory.
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experience with an older child, the home-education of a child already born or because
an earlier child had been withdrawn from school and was now being home educated.
Thus, subsequent children might have been receiving their education on the basis of
what had been considered best for an earlier child. The pattern of an eldest child with
some experience of school and younger siblings with little or none was fairly
common. Where decisions were made after birth they were often linked to the child’s
emerging character combined with a growing sense of attachment on the part of the
parents. Decisions to home-educate schooled children were usually precipitated by an
event, but often, at least with the primary-aged children, parents were already
inclined towards home-education having considered it at the pre-school stage. Where
the children were older, parents might not have considered home-education prior to
the situation that caused them to withdraw their child. Within the sample there were
just two single child families who had withdrawn their teenage child and it was
unclear whether those parents had considered home-education during the very early
years, although both families recalled that they had not been happy to send their child
to school initially.
Home-education arising as a natural progression from at least one child’s birth was
apparent for 57 of the families in the sample. The majority of these families had
experienced parenthood, enjoyed it and felt loath to be parted ‘unnecessarily’ from
their offspring at such an early age as school attendance requires. However, the issue
was complex. One of the other families had sent their child for one day, another for a
week before withdrawing. Some other families had used pre-schools.
At least 10 of these families had older children, possibly from previous relationships,
who had been schooled. Because of the changing constitution within a number of
families it emerged that they often did not mention that they had older, absent
children, unless probed. Home education here seemed an attempt not to repeat the
earlier experience.
Some parents were concerned about the exposure their children would have, if at
school, to aspects of society, trends and relationships. Following from these types of
concerns often came a feeling of positively not wanting strangers directing their
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children in an environment so far removed from the comfort and security of home.
This led them to question whether separation was actually healthy at such tender ages
and why school was necessary at all.
There were 9 families with 13 children who had special needs, but whether such
parents home-educated because of these special needs was difficult to say. At least 3
families said they would have home-educated with or without special needs in the
family.
Bullying at school had led some families to withdraw a child from school but nearly
always the home-education ‘seed’ had been sown earlier by reading an article,
speaking to someone involved in home-education or who had read about it, or having
a lifestyle already attuned to ‘alternative’ ideas. Molly had left school following
several incidents of bullying both by children and the teachers at the school. Her
mother attributed this to her being a ‘foreigner’ in the area, although it was likely that
the family’s traveller lifestyle contributed to Molly’s experience.
There was not, within this sample, any evidence of overnight decisions to homeeducate. The decisive factors were emergent, the result of a string of seemingly
insignificant events that made the choice to home-educate appear natural for the
family when the time came to take decisive action. The same was apparent for
religious families who came to home-educate through an evaluation of their beliefs
and by embodying the philosophy they held on life. For the families whose grown-up
children had been through the school system and for those whose children had
originally been in school, it was past experience that led them to seek an alternative
for their later children’s education.
SPECIAL NEEDS AS A PROMPT TO HOME-EDUCATE
Amongst those children in the sample with Special Educational Needs (SEN) (n=13),
it was difficult to separate their condition from their parent’s decision to homeeducate. Generally parents reported that they would have considered home-education
for their children with or without Special Needs but there was nevertheless, the
inference that their child’s condition may have prompted home-education.
Additionally there were home-educating parents who were either physically disabled
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or had a mental disorder (n=≥6). For some, this made home-education the simpler
option, for others it put them under considerable extra pressure. Parents of children
with special needs often home-educated their other children, younger and or, older.
One of the difficulties with defining SENs for this research was that some of the
relevant children had not been ‘statemented’, a process parents often connected with
school provision rather than home-education. Some families even with severely
handicapped children, did not want their children’s education being, as they saw it,
taken out of their hands by virtue of the statementing process.
Parents with disabilities
Deborah’s mother, Elizabeth suffered from ME (Myalgic Encephalopathy) and she
explained the financial constraints they were under:
“We don’t have a computer. With moving and Andrew’s work it’s not had
a slot, but things are picking up. We tend to follow themed days but with
ME it is difficult.”
Disability could lead to exclusion although the barriers faced were not clearly
connected with home education. One family where both parents were disabled
parents explained that they did not want to mix with non-Christians. They held
extreme fundamentalist ideas and were both semi-housebound. They had tried
meeting with other home-educators but described being put off by the ‘New Age
fraternity’ with their ‘heretic ideas’.
MOVEMENT IN AND OUT OF SCHOOL
Norma Jones’ story was rather characteristic of home-educators who withdrew
children from school, embraced home-education wholeheartedly and then, due to a
change in circumstance, returned the children to school. The Jones’ underwent
tumultuous change during the time of this research. Norma Jones moved from radical
activist home-educator to a ‘school mum’. Her then 7 year old daughter had,
originally been in school but was removed by her mother:
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Journal of Unschooling and Alternative Learning Vol. 5, Issue 10, Summer, 2011.
“My sister told me about home-education. I thought it was a disgusting
idea. I was worried about the social aspect. Since Lilya was born I
followed rules, did what my health visitor told me to, she told me this is
the way you do it and I did it. We spent a year searching for a decent
nursery school so she could socialise and meet other children. Lilya and I
went to all the usual mother-baby things. At ‘Tumble-tots’ they said Lilya
was unusually agile: at school the teacher said her motor skills were bad
and that she wouldn’t go on things. On the way home I questioned Lilya.
She said, ‘Well, that’s for babies’. Then the teacher held her hand too tight
and put her off writing. I was made to feel like a pushy parent. It was easy
having her at home again, I’d never had a time without a child at home, I
had Jamie by then.”
At the time of the interview Norma was studying and her husband had become a parttime ‘househusband’. However, the following year brought changes to the family. A
split in the marriage left Norma alone with the children and with a college course to
complete. She made a decision and placed the children in school.
Some parents, like Norma Jones, turned to higher or further education in an attempt to
keep up with their children. Where circumstances altered, it was sometimes the
children who became ‘victims’ of their own success by having been the catalyst
towards their parent having increasingly less time to devote to their home-education.
In Norma’s case her marriage break up may have been connected with her growing
aspirations. There was, however, a sense of parents grasping the opportunity to
provide motivated role models for their children. Where the children’s homeeducation was abandoned such parents sometimes believed the gains in terms of
income and status were equitable.
Kim, another mother who returned a child to school following earlier withdrawal, did
so because she could not spend enough time with her daughter, who in turn, was
dissatisfied with receiving so little attention:
“Mum just didn’t have the time for me.”
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There were two other families whose children returned to school having once been
withdrawn. The Taylors returned one child to school and sent the younger son for the
first time: they explained that they simply felt this to be the best decision at the time
since the elder son wanted to re-try school. The Taylors were Quakers and lived in a
very rural area with a strong local community and Quaker tradition. The children had
plenty of local school friends and the decision to try school was not such an upheaval
as it might have been under different circumstances.
The Turners lived in London. They had four children, two of whom had been in and
out and in again to school and two who had never previously tried school. Mr Turner
said:
“After 17 years of continuous childcare/home-education, we are now
experiencing being off duty for the first time during school hours. The
pressure of no rest time has been considerable and has bad knock on effects
on the children. What a joy it is to pick them up from school, not being
exhausted and depleted from being over stretched all the time. We hope
this new arrangement2 will provide the necessary educational input and
emotional happiness.”
HOME V SCHOOL: INTER-FAMILY CONFLICT
Inevitably there was conflict and who was doing what, for whose benefit, was a
further recurrent theme. There were occasional signs of friction within some families
as comments from the Thistle family, below, show. The house was located in a
modern village estate in the south of England. Geoffrey, the father, wore a full bushy
beard and tattoos that reflected his past occupation as a sailor. Mrs Thistle was prim
and Laura, their daughter aged eleven, was a gentle and soft-spoken child. This was a
strictly hierarchical and unusually conservative Jehovah’s Witness family: Mr Thistle,
who had come late to the religion, was the family’s leader:
2
The parents would continue to provide maths and English tuition at home.
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Journal of Unschooling and Alternative Learning Vol. 5, Issue 10, Summer, 2011.
“Laura does not mix with children. She was initially in school when her
brother was there to look after her, but she was being bullied. She had
large bruises. If we had our choice over again we would have homeeducated all the children. John [now seventeen-years-old] settled well but
then the bus driver took his bus pass and left him stranded. He couldn’t get
a new one. Kept being kept on detentions because of his homework – there
were times when he could not get into school. Then we didn’t want him to
study flags: we don’t believe in nationalism.”
John lived away from home and, like his older siblings, had not chosen to follow his
parents’ religion. Describing himself as a ‘rebel’, he worked as a car mechanic and
wore earrings. He sat on the edge of a chair, determined to have his say:
“I missed school at the time but now I’m happy, sort of. I missed
metalwork and sports. I used to come first in Sports.”
His father and sister continued:
[Father] “Aye, but we don’t believe in competition.”
[Laura] “I love swimming but never go.”
[Father] “We are just getting over the competition. They used to go twice a
week. […] I was bullied at school but I never knew why. Laura was
bullied but didn’t say until after we took her out.”
Laura suddenly spoke up for herself:
“I wouldn’t mind going to secondary school. Mum could have her time
back and do her housework and I’d have more time.”
And John added:
“I didn’t want to leave.”
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Whilst both parents listened to the children, neither appeared willing to
acknowledge what the children were saying:
[Mother] “At home we can concentrate on maths – how to use it in the
shops; she’ll need maths. In cooking she will weigh all her own things up.
We’ve done estimation, in the garden, in the rain.”
[Father] “These things you can’t do at school.”
John was asked if he would consider home-education for his own children:
“It depends. Home-education works because you don’t get bullied. I don’t
like to think back. What’s done is done. I look forward.”’
There were echoes of inter-parental conflict in the discussion below, although Mr
Kahn followed the line of least resistance. Asked about future expectations in terms of
examinations, Mr Kahn begun:
[Father] “I firmly believe that they should get ‘O’ levels and GCSE’s and
go onto higher education and I can’t practically see how they are going to
get GCSEs in some specialist fields. Although I could read a book about
physics, I don’t feel I have enough time to devote to doing that and I don’t
feel I have that expertise, so unless someone can come up with a practical
solution I see part-time school. Jane’s friends with children of that age
seem to have gone to school. I am open to guidance. If Jane can teach
them the coursework for GCSE that’s fine. I’m saying I don’t want to go
out and teach my children how to do French, Maths and Russian because I
haven’t got that interest.”
[Mother] “No, I’m not undermined by my husband’s attitude. I consider
his opinion and I work hard to check and research the things he’s doubtful
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Journal of Unschooling and Alternative Learning Vol. 5, Issue 10, Summer, 2011.
about. It sometimes shakes my confidence. I have to reaffirm my
confidence.”
[Father] “Do you believe people can get to university without GCESs?”
[Mother] “I do, but that doesn’t mean I won’t tell the children that it’s best
to have them.”
[Father] “University is a priority for me, but not so much for Jane. They
might not suffer as a result of not going, but it is beneficial.”
[Mother] “The difference is that you have been to university and I have
not. I’m sure it is very nice and to get on in the world today, it is the key
and the easiest way, rather than not have the keys. If you are the locksmith
it is better, you have more keys. That’s why I don’t have such a priority on
university as he does.”
DISCIPLINE WITHIN THE FAMILY
This issue was one that emerged slowly through the interviews. Attitudes to discipline
were particularly relevant for the home-educated children, who may have had less
opportunity to react against any adverse discipline than had they been in school. For
some parents, their attitudes towards discipline were intrinsic to their wider beliefs
concerning parental duty. Interviews with families in their own homes provided a
powerful base from which to explore discipline issues although discussion with the
children about their own attitudes was only undertaken with the families who did not
use corporal punishment.
The Conrad household discipline programme was interesting. Mr Conrad pointed out
a board on the wall resembling a ‘Mastermind’ game board:
[Father] “We have a points board. For good work the children receive
points. If they misbehave they lose points.”
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[Mother] “I’m not above slapping their backside, but only after several
warnings. I don’t think they are particularly deterred by that though.”
Whilst Mrs Johnson (a Jehovah’s Witness) used a more straightforward approach:
“We tell them off, or smack.”
Molly’s father took the question on a more light-hearted basis:
“Discipline? She gets threatened with not having things. She’s not bad.
Doesn’t do stupid things. If you tell her what a twit she’s been, she
understands.”
It was not possible to assess how common corporal punishment using an instrument
was, although Jeanette, mother of a large family, described what is often termed
amongst some Christians as ‘loving discipline’:
“We use the wooden spoon. They don’t do it twice. We inflict pain short
term but in the long term they learn not to give pain to others.”
Jeanette qualified this by adding:
“Usually, if someone asks for something politely you give it to them, but
this can go on and on for ever. We use an egg timer, this puts on a time
limit before another request can be made for the same item.”
The philosophy of corporal punishment amongst some Christians stems from
adherence to biblical ideas such as:
“Withhold not correction from the child: for if thou beatest him with the
rod, he shall not die. Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his
soul from hell.” (Prov 23:13,14)
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SHIFTING VALUES
Whatever route to home-education, the initial decision was often reinforced over time,
perhaps several years, through the parent’s experiences and connection with the homeeducation movement. It appeared that the practice of home-educating sometimes led
families to shift the parameters of their expectations and beliefs. This shift appeared to
support the theory promoted by Bion (1961), whereby seemingly moderate individuals
tend towards radicalism once they have membership of a group. The term ‘group’ is
employed here as an umbrella term to include all home-educators.
Joining an organisation and communicating with other home-educators, reading
literature on alternative education, spending time with the children; all these factors
compounded upon the original, perhaps tentative, decision to home-educate, so that, as
was evident in many families, they moved from conventional to unconventional,
increasingly questioning establishment norms. Interestingly, a family might have
appeared ‘average’ to the ‘outsider’; they owned or rented a terraced or housing estate
house, and dad worked nine-to-five. The family may, however, have moved far
beyond their original stance so as to be quite unrecognisable in terms of what would
normally be ‘expected’ of such a family by society at large. Four families interviewed
were either considering or already involved with, exchanging their town houses for a
life within communities based around home-education. These were not offbeat
communes for ‘alternative3’ people, but apparently well organised ventures involving
investment and commitment, whereby each family had its own private accommodation
but shared common land and could enjoy, on a continual basis, the company of other
home-educating families.
[Father] “I am interested in the community, car sharing, whole food, mixed
race living.”
Home-education for many, altered from being an idea about whether or not to send
children to school, into a philosophy of life. The change in direction that the families
went through appeared to intensify with more exposure to ‘home-education’. It left
‘ordinary’ families living extraordinary lives.
3
‘Alternative’ is a name given to people who feel, others feel, are different. New Age
Travellers, Vegans etc. might be considered as ‘alternative’.
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Alternative ideas about medicine
Most families underwent a transformation proportional to the length of time involved
with home-education, becoming increasingly radical in relation to their starting point.
Families who had never questioned society’s norms began questioning everything, not
just education but medicine, politics and life itself. On the subject of medical advice,
Rob’s father commented:
“We are very seldom at the doctors. Rob has not been for five years. He
only went for a vaccination but now we use homeopathic vaccinations.”
This father’s shift of position on vaccinations was typical of the experience described
by or observed in, a number of the home-educators although this was difficult to
quantify with accuracy.
Breastfeeding – nurturing, attachment & as a sign of change
Long-term (between 8 months and 6 years) breastfeeding was prevalent although the
actual incidence was difficult to quantify since the time spent nursing children often
increased in relation to the families growing commitment to home-education. Many
mothers found that in the absence of work, nursery or school pressures, there was
simply no reason to cease nursing until later than the norm. There were, of course,
families committed to this style of parenting from very early on but it was
nevertheless characteristic of the way families’ values shifted. Families who may not
have considered attachment parenting and who may actually have withdrawn their
first child from school, often shifted gradually towards a position where their
subsequent infants received a very different style of parenting. So apparent is the
social stigma attached to nursing young children, that families were reticent about
mentioning that they continued to nurse their young child. Indeed, it is not a question
that one would normally ask about a three or four-year-old child. However, once the
practice became known to the researcher, questions relating to nursing were included
in the interview routine and a clear pattern emerged. Mrs Gardner, a rather formal
lady, was not someone one would associate with long-term nursing, yet here she
describes her metamorphosis:
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Journal of Unschooling and Alternative Learning Vol. 5, Issue 10, Summer, 2011.
“I breast-fed Julienne until he was four-years-old. I’d breast-fed Julia for
ten months, Jannine for a year and Jemima for three years. With Julia I
didn’t have the confidence, but once I’d fed one or two, I felt it was
beneficial. I just became more open minded.”
Christian home-educating mothers interviewed also tended towards long-term nursing
although in their case this was less indicative of a shift than of a fundamental
philosophy. Many of the Christians believed that breastfeeding should be for exactly
12 months and were unusual in not introducing solids into their babies during that
year. One mother commented:
“My children are each exclusively breastfed for 12 months. After that date
they are put onto solids. I have heard that it is harmful to continue nursing
beyond 12 months.”
Jehovah’s Witnesses however, tended to take a far more liberal approach to long-term
nursing and in this respect had more in common ideologically with the parents who
were growing increasingly ‘alternative’.
Shifting Prejudices
Another parent described the way her attitudes to people had changed:
“I used to look down my nose at people who weren’t like us. Filthy
travellers, gypsies, new-age hippies, those who scrounge off the state. I’d
have called academics ‘stuck up toffs’ and hated anyone who I thought
was ‘above’ me. I used all manner of insults and had no time for people
like that. Now? I’ve been through it, seen it all, doing this [homeeducating] I’ve met all sorts. And you know what? They’re no different
from us. I take everyone as they come now and I’ve time for them. I’ll talk
to anyone. This has really changed me.”
Shifting, searching and finding God/Jehovah
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Change was particularly noticeable in the families interviewed twice. One family
interviewed were later emailed for an update. Asked how things were, they
responded that:
“We found Jesus.”
Parents (NOT) compromising on their dreams and ambitions
Whilst home-education was not always the easiest path that parents could have taken
there was little evidence to suggest bitterness or compromise. All but a few parents
seemed satisfied with the choice they had made. Mrs Knight, for example gave no
hint of what ‘used’ to be, yet watching her cook and cater for four children in a tiny
crowded inner city flat, exhausted but still retaining traces of former elegance, was a
poignant reminder that this mother had exchanged a high level job with one of the
glossy magazines for life on a low income, devoting years to her children’s education.
Despite the many ambitions that had been reassessed to accommodate homeeducation, only two parents mentioned their decision in relation to their plans:
“Home-education is not as I imagined. I never foresaw special needs.”
“My child’s special needs curtailed my dreams and thwarted my
ambitions.”
These parents nevertheless chose to devote more time to their children than would
have been the case had the children been in school. Parents who questioned the
necessary compromise were most probably those who did not remain home-educating
for long or who at some point, chose to place their children in school.
Counter-intuitively, perhaps, it appeared as if home-education actually liberated
families, women particularly, of social norms, whereby, once they had ‘stepped’
outside the ‘doors’ of institutionalism they were free to ‘do it their way’ – this was a
view espoused by Holt and one for which he was severely criticised (Cochran 1999).
As one mother said:
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“We do what we want, when we want.”
And another:
“Home-education is hard work. There’s lots of preparation behind the
scenes but you get the reward that you taught your child.”
In the following quotation, the mother’s own liberation is evident:
“Home-education is a realistic and exciting option. It frees you and your
children from dependence on the education authorities, in and out of
schools. We did not start to home-educate by choice. Our son was
becoming frustrated with his failure to learn reading, despite being in a
small class. My mother-in-law was staying with us and gave him a lesson.
After his first lesson he came out and said, ‘It’s OK mum, Grammie can
help me. We were launched.”
SOCIALISATION AND SOCIAL EFFECTS: THE CHILDREN’S SOCIAL
ADJUSTMENT AND RELATIONSHIPS WITH OTHERS.
The need for socialisation, fact or fiction?
Socialisation was important to parents. This was evident by the efforts they made to
ensure that their children did not suffer as a result of having less exposure to their
peer group than might have been the case had they been at school. Parents mindful
for the children’s circumstances often appeared to hold an exaggerated idea of the
need for socialisation. There was even an undertone of what Cassidy (1998) describes
as over-parenting, where school parents fall victim to the cult of desperately seeking
social experiences for their children at the expense of their own logic.
The children however, untainted by contemporary thoughts on socialisation, did not
always share the parents’ concern that socialisation was of such significance. The
mother continued:
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“My daughter recently rebelled and we now spend a fair amount of time
with just me and her at home, at her request. This is not what I envisaged,
I’m not even sure it’s what I want now, but I’m riding with it for now.”
Several families described themselves as always being the ones to make the effort
where friendships with other families were involved. They thought it likely that since
their children were not at school, the other children who were did not always think to
include them in invitations.
Social Exclusion
In a number of cases, social exclusion arose as a result of living at some distance
from the town and other children, rather than because the children were homeeducated. Few parents were aware of parents of schoolchildren discriminating against
their children.
Where parents were ‘different’, this may have been catalytic in their decision to
home-educate which, in turn, may have caused a level of social exclusion. One family
described a type of social exclusion that was more a consequence of lifestyle than of
the decision to home-educate and it was this social exclusion that had brought about
the decision to home-educate in the first place:
[Mother] “At school they would not let Andrea join in swimming. I took
her out of school one day a week. We are vegans and so I sent her with
packed lunch. Andrea would have wholemeal bread. She doesn’t eat
sweets and the others were sweet mad. She missed a half of one school
year through illness. At school it was hard to give medicine 3 times a day.
She was taunted for being a ‘comer in’. At school she felt that if she didn’t
go to church she would be bullied. They called me a pagan.”
A different culture
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Some of the non-native British4 parents (n=≥26) held views on socialisation that were
less symptomatic of wanting to ‘fit in’ than those of the native British Caucasians.
Possibly, with different cultural origins it was easier to be accepted as different. As
one person in authority told the researcher:
“You know I was not aware until recently they home-educated but when I
found out, I wasn’t surprised. After all her husband is coloured and the
children might get picked on at school.”
This family actually home-educated because of their ‘alternative’ values and would
have been dismayed by this comment. A Muslim family interviewed found
themselves with a dilemma – they wanted their children to mix with Muslim children
but in their area the home-educated children were mostly Caucasian. This type of
problem, where parents were specific about who they would most like to mix with,
sometimes limited opportunities to socialise.
The effect of religious affiliation
In so far as socialisation was a problem, the families with church membership were
often advantaged. Interestingly, what was termed by one non Jehovah’s Witness
interviewee as, ‘dragging their kids from door to door’5, was considered an enriching
educational and social experience by the families concerned.
Following Jehovah’s Witness conversion, the Johnsons had new friends that they
could call upon.
[Mother] “There are other home-educators in the congregation. We have
loads of friends to see now, between meetings.”
.
During her initial interview for this research, Mrs Johnson had spoken of the family’s
detachment from the community surrounding them.
4
There were n=17 (in 16 families) Caucasian non-native Britons (e.g. Irish) and n=9 (in 7
families) non-Caucasian native (e.g. Indian descent) and non-native Britons (e.g.Indian
immigrant), most of whom were in mixed race relationships.
5
A term used by one non Jehovah’s Witness family.
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Social Adjustment and Special Needs
Rollo was brain damaged, but his story had much in common with other homeeducated children. There was the need for community support and the evident
importance of friends; Rollo was fortunate that his childhood friends had remained
close:
[Mother] “The children come over, there’s four or five who are the same
age, they’ve grown up with him. I have learnt through Rollo, how
important socialisation is. Particular children gravitate towards him,
perhaps more for their needs than his. One child insists on speaking to him
as if he’s four. As for girls, it’s about making opportunities for him.”
Imaginary Friends and their Social Role
Once asked, at least 15 parents and 4 children spoke up on the topic of imaginary
friends6. Whether imaginary friends were especially endemic amongst the homeeducated children in particular was difficult to say: it was quite possible that for those
children passing through school age without entering school, their imaginary friends
remained longer than the ‘norm’ (Cassidy 1998). It was further possible that the
home-educating parents noticed them more than if the children were at school. The
value of imaginary friends has been discussed by McCabe (1998), Seiffge Krenke
(1997) and Taylor and Carlson (1997). Imaginary friends are said to provide the child
with an experimental world where they can test out their theories, explore their
feelings and extend their world. Research has shown that:
“Socially competent and creative adolescents with good coping abilities
were particularly prone to create such a ‘very special friend’.”
Seiffge Krenke (1997)
Talk of imaginary companions was often peppered with discussion of their children’s
imagination, inquisitive nature and self-motivation. For one group of children living a
communal lifestyle, their childhood was one of imagination, wildness and abstraction,
6
This question only emerged later in the interview programme, hence the number 15 may
underestimate the prevalence of imaginary friends.
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roaming within 13 acres of rolling woods and farmland, often naked. There was
nothing to hinder their imagination and that of their imagined companions. Their
existence was both frightening and idyllic, reminiscent of ‘Lord of the Flies’7.
TIGHT STRUCTURE V DISORGANISATION
Order
Most families trod a middle path that was neither very structured nor very haphazard
although there were two exceptions. The Blyth family were organised. There were
four children and the family lived in a detached estate home with ‘everything in its
place and a place for everything’. The children were calm, polite, controlled and quiet.
Mr and Mrs Blyth were serious and intent but friendly people. There seemed to be an
orderliness that had been planned for, in an arrangement that never went wrong. The
Blyths were one of the most unusual families in that they followed a timetable that ran
all day, to the clock.
Disorder
Kat and her family epitomised chaos and presented as great a contrast as one could
imagine to the academic Blyths. Kat, mother to five children, had tried homeeducation but gave up because as she explained candidly, she had not been willing to
make the necessary adjustments. The family were travellers, residing in a rented excouncil property at the time of the interview. The dwelling had the telltale signs of
itinerancy within – a converted ‘live in’ truck parked up on the front garden, peeling
wallpaper, ragged mats on carpetless floors, chattels heaped around the walls of each
room with a central space devoid of furniture. Clothing and hairstyles too, were
testimony to the family’s New Age lifestyle.
Talking with Kat it was apparent that she believed that her successive pregnancies had
stalled her artistic and entrepreneurial spirit.
“I started a degree but got pregnant. I’ve always planned to finish it. I’d
like to do art work but there is too much chaos. I’d like to be alone to
work. I don’t get much work done. I get low in energy.”
7
William Golding: Lord of the Flies (1954)
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Kat was busy with five children, three of whom were under the age of five: the
disorganisation was obvious. She had begun home-educating with the best intentions
and possibly as an antidote to her inadequacies, yet was let down by her own inability
to control her own life. During the visit, the researcher sat on the only, decrepit chair
that could be summoned; family members moved in and out of the interview like
mercury moving up and down a thermometer, epitomising the transient disordered
nature of the whole family. There was though, a happy ending to the home education,
as twelve-year-old Maia explained:
“I wasn’t getting anywhere. Maths and English I was doing by myself.
Granddad sent me some history papers. I went to Saturday club activities
and a philosophy group and home-education activities. I’m not keen on the
‘EO’ things. We don’t have a TV but there’s a computer. I went to two
schools and then tried home-education but it didn’t work, I’ve no
motivation. I’m at a school now where I don’t have to go to lessons or
meetings unless I want to. The teachers are friendly and we call them by
their first names. I’ve been there two months and I’ve made some friends.”
FORMAL V INFORMAL LEARNING
These two quotations illustrate something of the dichotomy between these two
approaches to learning:
[Mother 1] “If your child is already in school it is a really big decision to
take your child out of school. I find the home-educators here fall into two
camps. The ex-teachers who decided school wasn’t for them but like
myself take schooling seriously, and the others who don’t want to do
anything. There’s one parent with a ten year old who doesn’t read. I find
this depressing.”
And,
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Journal of Unschooling and Alternative Learning Vol. 5, Issue 10, Summer, 2011.
[Mother 2] “A year before school started, late September, the LEA sent a
list of local schools. We shelved it. At first Mike suggested filling it in just
in case but I pointed out that we have passed the last two years dithering
and now was the time to make a decision. We had not met anybody by
then, just a few families but no one who we had anything in common with.
Others seemed to be doing school at home. That was what they said. One
family did 5 days of 3 hours/day and then took a week off; they were bornagain Christians, evangelicals praying to Jesus.”
As the interviews and assessment programme unfolded, it became clear that there was
a difference between what families said they did and what they actually did. Here, Mr
Kealy discusses a family who used to home-educate:
“They bought lots of books and it’s difficult if you do that. I believe in the
John Holt8 thing. I wanted to believe it would just happen but sometimes
have wanted them to do things. Now I believe in letting them read what
they want. I think there’s no need to sit them down.”
Martine went on to contradict her father:
“My daddy gets lots of workbooks. We normally read books.”
Informality to a large extent depended upon where and how the family lived. Many
families, particularly those outside the cities, led lives whereby the children had almost
continual access to the outside. One very devout and large Christian family were
farmers, hence, despite the structured approach and adherence to ‘lessons’, the
children were able to spend time working or playing on the farm. The following
family was not wealthy but they did live rurally:
“Sarah often spends hours in the shed alone. The children are remarkably
happy with their own company. They like building dens and climbing. I
am quite robust and able to help make things, carpentry etc. Better at it
than my husband.”
8
Author of ‘Teach Your Own’. See bibliography.
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ADAPTATION TO CHILDREN’S NEEDS, PERCEIVED MOVE FROM
CURRICULUM-CENTRED TO CHILD-CENTRED
Integral to the shift felt by families was movement away from the initial starting point
in terms of how the home-education was ‘administered’. Some families, in particular
those who have withdrawn their children from school, moved from an intention to
‘teach’ their children towards a stance whereby they ‘facilitated’ their children’s
learning. To some extent, teaching/learning/facilitating style changes were to be
expected: children were growing up, there were children of different ages in the family
and all the children were individuals.
Direction of shift in term of formal-to-informal or formal-towards-informal very
much depended upon the age at which home-education started, as a parent explains:
“As Helen has got older she has wanted more and more structure.”
Those home-educating children from birth usually became more formal as the
children grew up whilst families withdrawing children from school tended to initiate
with an intention of keeping abreast of school but gradually relaxing into a pattern
that suited the family. Formal or informal, families tended to be regulated by the
seasons and the school calendar which impacted on some of the home-educating
families’ outings and activities. Even formal families accepted that different children
needed different approaches:
“We have moved from formal towards informal; originally with Jane I
thought I should do 5 hours a day. We did implement that for a month.
Now we have a vague structure to the week ahead, although this is very
flexible.”
Attempts to replicate school were often short lived:
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Journal of Unschooling and Alternative Learning Vol. 5, Issue 10, Summer, 2011.
“I began with workbooks. I was organised. It lasted a fortnight. We were
ready to kill each other.”
Meighan (1995) and Thomas (1998) have emphasised this latter direction in depth,
although they do not discuss the reverse shift evident with families who home-educate
from birth, whereby they move towards formality as the children grow older. Molly’s
mother described their experience:
“We tend to do lessons. At first I tried to and went towards, autonomous
learning. We first introduced structure at five-ish. It was my feeling that
we should.”
In reality, none of the home-educating families visited could be described as
‘curriculum-centred’. The very nature of home-education indicated that families held
their children to be central to family life, duty and reason d’être.
ASSESSMENT & EVALUATION OF CHILDREN’S PROGRESS AND THE
TENDENCY TO UNDERESTIMATE IT.
There tended to be equal division between families who shunned assessment and those
who welcomed it. Christians were often keen to be aware of where their children were
up to academically. Families whose children were learning more informally tended to
speak about rejecting evaluation. Nevertheless, only one family in the entire
assessment programme (Rothermel 2002, 2004) refused an assessment on ideological
grounds and it seemed that most families welcomed the knowledge about where their
children are academically. Agreement to assist with the assessment based programme
may have centred upon parent’s desire to co-operate with home-education research but
more than this, there was a sense that families welcomed the researcher’s interest in
them and they welcomed an external assessment of their children. Beneath the
defensive ‘we are not interested in assessment’ approach, there was for many, a sense
of wanting to have a gauge on how well they, as parent educators, were performing.
For many parents, home education is a lonely road; it is the parent who is uniquely
accountable. Therefore, confidence in what one is doing needs to be maintained and
confirmation, even by a stranger, that home education is working, can provide a sense
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of vindication. Other parents were simply curious. In the earlier testing programme
parents had been asked if they would like to receive their children's results and one
parent, referring to this choice, complained:
“I didn’t mind her doing your test. She wanted to, but I didn’t want to
know the results. Now though, knowing you know makes me curious. I’m
annoyed with myself.”
Interestingly, the competitive nature seen amongst ‘school mums’ was absent. Without
a large peer group to compare with on a daily basis, home educating parents simply
didn’t have the competitive basis that school provides (for example, ‘Jonny’s the only
one in the class that can’t read yet’). Similarly, whilst schools value the teacher’s
formal qualifications, home educating parents largely made no reference to whether
they felt ‘qualified’. Most believed that parental commitment was the dominant
‘qualification’ and the assessment results set out in Rothermel (2002 and 2004) appear
to justify this view.
Parents were often surprised by their child’s ability. Initially this seemed astonishing
but as the study progressed it became clearer how this came to be. It transpired that the
tests given in Rothermel (2002) focused on skills that the children did not practise
regularly with parents, but which they were nevertheless able to transfer to other areas
of learning. Whilst the following child did not take any assessments her example
illustrates this notion well.
‘My four-year-old wrote out three names yesterday. Even I could read
them. One was ‘Jonathan’ – he’s a friend of ours. It’s a long name and I
was astonished. I have seen her write the initial letter of her name but I
did not know she could actually write. We have never sat down together
to write anything, ever. I’m not entirely sure how this happened but I am
exceedingly proud.’
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Home-educating parents, Christian or otherwise, tended not to assess their younger
children formally, instead giving more credence to the value of informal learning.
This was an attitude that prevailed whether the family adopted a structured or
unstructured approach. This did not mean, however, that parents were very sure of
themselves: they often had nagging doubts about just how well the children were
progressing.
CONCLUSION
Despite an abundance of interesting and insightful research into home education over
the years, the view, epitomised by Education Secretary Blunket (1999) in his Labour
party conference speech continues to permeate:
“Conference, a child not in lessons is a child not learning.”
(Blunkett 1999)
The government sponsored, ‘Review of Elective Home education’ (Badman 2009)
concluded that home educated children were more likely to be receiving an unsuitable
education and more likely to be at risk than children nationally and Lord Soley wrote
in his blog (2010), “The more home education spreads the greater the danger”.
Moreover, Ofsted (2010) notes that amongst Local Authorities, “there was a bias
towards returning children and young people to school” (p.16).
Both Ofsted (2010) and Badman (2009) emphasise the need to find out why people
home educate. The idea is that if we know the reasons, we can address them and
(re)integrate children into school. In many discussions with Local Authorities over the
years, this researcher has heard the phrase, ‘home educating for the wrong reasons’, as
if this were an ill awaiting cure.
The interviews discussed here give an insight into the abundance of views held by this
very diverse set of people. What emerges is that attempts to establish and address the
reasons why people home educate through a simple ‘type’ approach, such as
‘religious reasons’, ‘bullying’ etc. is a fruitless and flawed methodology. Badman
(2009) writes:
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“I believe it is important for local authorities both to analyse and consider
why an increasing number of parents are choosing elective home education
both for the betterment of children services as a whole and the monitoring
and support of electively home educated children.”(p.12)
However, Badman, as others before (Hopwood et al 2007), exhibits a persistence in
misunderstanding the basics of home education. That is, that there are no simple
answers as to why people chose to home educate. Not only do reasons change over
time (sometimes very quickly) but the motivations and reasons will often have
emerged over many years. A parent may well cite, ‘bullying’ as a reason to home
educate. However, whilst it may indeed be a factor, it may not be the cause. Rather,
the parent has probably given a convenient answer (perhaps from a set of options) to a
simple question. Labels that create categories are useful for those with financial and
controlling interests, such as local governments, whose education budget increases
with pupil numbers and who may therefore, develop initiatives to persuade certain
‘types’ of children into, or back into, school. As long as this approach continues, the
needs of home educators and their children may never be met. Goiria (2009)
emphasises the irrelevance of grouping home educators:
“There are as many reasons to educate at home as there are families who
opt to do it [...] It is certain that no one is questioning the motives of those
who send their children to school [...] It is taken for granted that the
question is as redundant as “Why do you feed your children?”
Goiria’s comparison raises the question ‘Why?’ Why do we want to know the reason
people home educate? And why does every new study ask the same question? Over
many years, commercial companies have approached this author asking about ‘types’
so that they can market their product. A cynic would suggest that Local Authorities
are doing the same. These parents have opted out of an endeavour that funds local
government and in doing so, present the Local Authorities with a problem:
“The number of home-educated children is very high and has risen rapidly
over the last academic year. [...] Those currently registered with the local
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Journal of Unschooling and Alternative Learning Vol. 5, Issue 10, Summer, 2011.
authority are effectively monitored, but, with the large increase in numbers
over the last year, the resource to carry out this function is insufficient.”
Ofsted, (Isle of Wight) (2006) (p.22)
Arguing against Ofsted’s (2010) emphasis on finding out why people home educate,
the Parliamentary Education committee Chair Graham Stuart argues that onus on local
authorities should be “to serve and support, rather than catalogue and monitor”, home
educators.
The detailed interviews with 100 home educators described above, many of whom
were visited twice over a 9 month period, provide an overview of a group which is
fluid and transient at all levels of process. Families begin home education for a reason
that very quickly changes, even that initial rationale is likely to be a response to many
unconnected and innocuous events; they continually alter their approach according to
the philosophical and physical changes within the family, the changing needs of the
children, and the changing ages of the children. Physical changes can relate to
changes in family size, divorce, changes in partners, partner gender, location and
parental age. Schools do not have to continually adapt to the level of change that is
integral to the home educator and his family. Home education is an unavoidably
dynamic process, unique in UK education. A school teaches the same curriculum day
after day, regardless of the families whose children they enrol.
The research described in this paper is some years old, but this author has continued
to work in the field and observes that as long as the popularist notion that links home
education to school dissatisfaction prevails, the opportunities afforded through the
study of home education, such as assessing the value of a later school starting date, or
alternative, innovative approaches to learning, will continue to be missed.
Paula Rothermel formally associated with the University of Durham, a chartered
psychologist, continues her work as an Expert Witness in court cases where home
education is an issue, in the UK and abroad.
54
Setting the record straight: Interviews with 100 home educating families
P.J.Rothermel 2011
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